HYDERABAD: Telangana does not have enough doses of Covaxin to continue administering the first dose despite the vaccine's maker being based out of the State.
Also, Covaxin is the country’s first homegrown antidote to COVID-19. It is learnt from several private hospitals in Hyderabad that they have not been receiving Covaxin doses and are relying on the Pune-based Serum Institute of India's Covishield.
"In the initial phases of the vaccination drive, 40 per cent of the vaccine stock, which we used to receive, was Covaxin. But over the last one week, the arrivals of Covaxin has been dwindling to 10-20 per cent," a representative of a corporate hospital in the city said.
In fact, some hospitals have been told by the State Health Department that no fresh doses of the vaccine would be supplied over the next few weeks. Speaking to The New Indian Express, the department's officials attributed this shortage to the lack of deliveries of new Covaxin doses from the Centre for a while now.
A senior official said Telangana had received around 4.5 lakh doses of Covaxin, of which about 2.25 lakh were used so far to administer the first dose of the vaccine. "The remaining stock has been kept on hold to administer the second dose to those who have taken the first dose of the vaccine. This is due to the lack of confirmation as to when the fresh stock would arrive," an official said.
Sources in the department also said that despite the demand for Covaxin, there is no means to request the Centre for a particular brand of vaccine. The New Indian Express has learnt that Telangana has been ironically left with only 10 lakh doses of Covishield.
If the stocks are not replenished soon, it could cause a shortfall as vaccinations are expected to increase from April 1, when everyone over 45 years of age will be eligible to receive the shot. As on Monday, 11,85,771 doses of Covid vaccines were administered in TS.
Meanwhile, the State recorded 463 new cases of the disease of the 42,461 tests conducted. The active cases have risen to 4,678, of which 2,955 individuals are hospitalised. A majority of the cases (145) were from the GHMC limits.
Telangana has been laggard among all States when it comes to the vaccination drive, but has emerged at the top in terms of the proportion of all vaccinations administered by private healthcare facilities.
According to the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare’s data, 48.39 per cent of all COVID-19 vaccine doses in the State were administered at private healthcare facilities. Earlier this month, the Ministry had ranked TS 24th for vaccinating 11,578 doses/mn.
The Sri Sri Holistic Hospital administered the highest number of doses (9,005), followed by Apollo Hospitals (7,889) and Yashoda Hospitals Secunderabad (7,832). Among the government facilities, Government Medical College, Nizamabad, has vaccinated the highest number of individuals (7,374)